Scamp Elephant Hide

[John Perry]

The 1986 Scamp that I just bought has what the people at Scamp call Elephant Hide covering the interior. It is a vinyl type material over a thin foam backing and the color of an elephant.
It is in pretty good shape, no rips or tears, other than some staining at the windows and being very sticky and dirty. Has anyone painted this covering with any luck? I would rather paint it than replace it.

Any advice would be appreciated,
John

[Brian B-P]

The stuff is usually known by the brand name of Ensolite, although one of the Boler brochures called it "Tylon", and it is informally described as "elephant hide", which is think is quite descriptive. A search (Search link is near the top right of the page) in this forum for ensolite should yield all sorts of good information. By the way, I think it should be closer to white than elephant grey...

There are links for Ensolite suppliers in the Helpful-Links page under Resources (left side of this page); for cleaning and painting information, forum posts will be the best source.

The good news is that many members have reported successfully cleaning and painting this material.

A bit of trivia:
when I spoke with Scamp staff about their wall covering, they said that the switched to their current materials ("ratfur" fabric over Reflectix insulation) in 1987, so 1986 would be the newest "elephant skin" in a Scamp.

[John Campbell]

John,

Just this week there was a discussion on the Yahoo Scampers group about elephant hide. One person reported successfully painting this wall covering. He used an undercoat with mildewcide and then several coats of polyurethane enamel and seemed pleased with the results. Check out Loren's response in the topic "old insulation" for details on exactly what he did and the brands of material he used.

(I'm assuming cross-referencing sites is OK. If not, would someone please let me know so that I won't make the mistake again. I'm relatively new here).

John Campbell

[John Perry]

John,
(I'm assuming cross-referencing sites is OK. If not, would someone please let me know so that I won't make the mistake again. I'm relatively new here).

John Campbell

Thanks John, I will check out the Yahoo site.

It 's lite grey Brian not the dirty, sticky brownish grey it was before I 3 different cleaners on it. Good old TSP did the best.

Thanks to both of you for the helpful advice and information.

John